We don’t like to follow God’s instructions

Last week, when strapping Emerald into her stroller for a walk, we noticed a missing bootee had been placed atop the buggy’s hood. Later a neighbor said she’d found it on the road while walking her puppy 4 blocks away. “It had to be Emerald’s,” she said.

This week when I went to answer a gentle knock on my front door, there stood another neighbor holding up a pink bootee. “I found it on my walk,” she said, “2 blocks down. It had to be Emerald’s.”

Emerald is forever pulling off her socks/booties and dropping them along the way, like Hansel and Gretel dropped bread crumbs. Although Birgitta, Louisa, and I try to keep an eye, it never fails that when we arrive home, one or both are missing.

All summer Emerald has been barefoot, but the other day it was chilly, so we tried socks and shoes. The darling purple slippers with Velcro straps were perfectly sized to her feet, but sure enough, by the end of the walk they were gone. We backtracked 3 blocks before we found the 2 socks and 2 shoes.

The next time we used her lace-up high-whites, but she balled up her toes so stiffly we couldn’t get them on. I have no idea what we’re going to do with our barefoot baby as seasonal temperatures dip further.

We 3 adults want only to help our little girl, but she views compulsory footwear as a withdrawal of her freedom to be barefoot. The spiritual parallel is obvious: God steadily tries to help us, too, but we often see his ideas as a withdrawal of our freedom. Emerald likes her way better than ours and will continue to pursue barefoot-ed-ness, a silly plan as winter approaches.

But do the rest of us respond to God with similar childishness?

For example, God says, “Why don’t you forgive that person you’re holding a grudge against? If you do, you’ll lose that chip on your shoulder that’s continually upsetting you.”

But rather than acquiesce, we respond Emerald-esque: “The way I’m handling it is better, so I’m going to continue in my anger.” At that point, God has a choice. He can either let us have our own way, stuck in our misery, or he can bring things to a head in an effort to help us, since he loves us dearly.

In the same way, we can give Emerald permission, so to speak, to go barefoot through our Michigan winter, or we can insist she wear footwear. Because we love her dearly, we’re going to insist. She’ll object only because she hasn’t had any experience with stinging-cold toes or painful frostbite, and we hope she never will.